If you remember the Nineties . . . you were there. Now that we've gone through the rock'n'roll Fifties, the swinging Sixties, the sad Seventies and the yuppie Eighties, we'll have to come up with something for this decade. This was the task author John Robb set himself, in his just-published book The Nineties (What the f**k was that all about?). It's an odyssey through the definitive musical moments of the decade, where Robb runs with the pack, stopping off every so often to take a reading on the cultural barometer. While the rest of us have yet to make our mind up, Robb is unequivocal in his summing up: "It's been a decade that's seen more invention and sheer diversity than any before - it pisses all over the much-hyped and fabled Sixties". The first of many contradictions in this absorbing book stems from that very statement: if the Nineties do exceed the Sixties, then why was so much of the last 10 years spent on recreating the Sixties? (Answers on a postcard to the book's publisher).
"The Nineties was a time when the barriers came down. It was a time when you could cross-pollinate and grab any scene you wanted. After acid house and ecstasy created a mood where anything goes, anything certainly did go," he writes. Taking as his starting point the fall of the Berlin Wall - which he over-mines a bit, in terms of symbolism - the decade began musically with "Madchester" and the much-mooted guitars-meets-dance sound of the Stone Roses and the Mondays. Ecstasy had arrived as the drug of choice and a loved-up generation gather on Spike Island to usher in the new musical order.
Back then it was, as they say, sorted. Except it wasn't, and the fall of the Manchester empire - hoist on a petard made of hubris, drugs, greed and guns - is duly noted in sombre terms. What Greil Marcus once noted of Rod Stewart - "the greatest betrayal of talent" equally applied to the Manchester posse, and it was left to an equally rainy, equally depressed city on the other side of the world to fill the vacuum. Out of Seattle came a sound that fused metal and punk to create one of the best musical rackets of the last 40 years. Robb writes of Nirvana: "They were the sound of terror and celebration, featuring a beautiful, blemished, raw, tough gnarl of a voice". That ended abruptly too, though, and before we knew it, it was Blur, Oasis and Pulp and the originators Suede, usurping the throne. Bubbling under throughout the decade was dance - from illegal raves to funny-shaped pills, Ibiza to South London pirate radio stations, a specially-designed Criminal Justice Act to near-mainstream respectability and the advent of dance supergroups.
It's on the smaller issues, though, that the book really enlightens, as in the chapters on the musical import of cities like Glasgow and Bristol. On the former city, Robb notes that musicians there always stress their influences as being The Velvets, Love, The Stooges, Big Star and the whole US underground scene - which makes some sense when you consider the musical output of bands like Mogwai, The Pastels and Teenage Fanclub. With Bristol, he notes that cross-racial influences threw up some of the most remarkably important bands of the decade - systems were well used to dub following soul following punk following reggae following hip-hop.
Whether he's talking to the editors of Jockey Slut magazine, getting up close and personal with The Manic Street Preachers, mooching around the Heavenly Sunday Social, deciphering the Aphex Twin, going "ooh, la la" at French pop or trying to understand The Offspring, Robb carries out an impressive musical inventory of the decade. This is only to be expected from an ex-Sounds journalist who has written two very good books (on The Charlatans and The Stone Roses) but what's lacking here is a broader perspective. While he does also tackle fashion, New Age Travellers, football and politics (on Tony Blair he writes "the fact that he apparently listened to Genesis is his `wild' youth without ever taking any drugs at all is totally terrifying. You mean to say he actually liked them . . . sober . . . that's scary"), the sense is that these articles are tacked on to give a rounder cultural appeal. However, as a musical history of the Nineties, there's none better.
The Nineties (What the f**k was that all about?) is published by Ebury Press, price £9.99
